Blacktoft and North Duffield Carrs

 Saturday the 14th and I arrived at RSPB Blacktoft to man the visitor centre for the day. The air and skies were full of pink-footed geese, several thousands of them. The above photo is about a 50th of the birds in the area. They were in a field just across the road from the reserve so their call was the background noise all day, until late afternoon when a lot returned to roost along the Humber.

Lots of visitors to the reserve, so I did not get chance to do any birding during the day. After 5pm Catherine and I went to Singleton hide and joined some other birders looking at the waders. Ruff, redshank, black-tailed godwits and a marsh harrier. When Catherine left for home I went down to Marshland hide. A single avocet was present and it was limping as it walked about looking for food. A green sandpiper was also present.

The sun was setting as I locked up at 7pm.

Sunday was a very busy day at the football club with a dozen matches, mostly played in heavy rain. One of my nephews came for a bacon butty as he had brought his son, who was playing for one of the visiting teams.

After lunch today, I decided to go down the Lower Derwent Valley. Bank Island was very quite, no water to see and only a grey heron poking its head above the vegetation.

I drove down to North Duffield Carrs where I met Elaine. We walked down to the viewing screen, erected by the Carstairs Coutryside Trust. We hoped to see stonechat, but had to make do with black-headed gulls catching flying insects and a pair of buzzards calling as they soared overhead.

I walked to the Geoff Smith hide and Elaine, along with her trainee dog for the hearing followed shortly afterwards. No sign of any birds on the scrape but a marsh harrier was hunting over the reserve and we could see several buzzards in the distance.

Elaine walked down to the Garganey hide with her dog and I remained in the hide. I heard a loud  splash and could see ripples in the water and assumed it must have been a fish. Then I heard the call of a kingfisher and saw this male perched on a reed in front of the hide.

it sat there for a few minutes, looking around and then it dived into the water and emerged with a fish.

I was expecting it to manoeuvre the fish so that it could swallow it head first, but instead it flew off still carrying the fish in its beak.

I then left the hide and walked towards the garganey hide I met Elaine on the way there as she was going home. 

 This deer was in the field next to the path and soon jumped over a fence and disappeared from view.

Not much to see from the hide, the farmer was busy gathering in the bales of hay and lots of rooks were busy looking for insects in the grass field.. A pleasant 2 hours.